Chapter 81: The Decision

The rigid-hull inflatable boat cut through the gray swells, leaving a frothing white wake as it ferried Ayanokoji and Miyuki back across the gap between the modern supercarrier and the battered imperial wooden ships.

Two armed Marines stood on the pontoon benches, carbines held firmly at the low-ready, their dark goggles reflecting the pale morning light. Neither spoke a word. The silent, mechanical discipline was a sharp contrast to the chaotic shouting and terrified murmurs that drifted from the listing corvette ahead.

When the rubber boat pulled alongside the ship’s shattered hull, the imperial sailors stared down over the splintered bulwarks like condemned men awaiting the headsman’s axe.

Ayanokoji climbed up the hemp rope ladder first, his boots hitting the blood-slicked oak planks with a dull thud. Miyuki followed right behind him, quickly gathering her long skirt to keep from tripping over severed rigging.

Captain Daniel stood near the ruined wheelhouse, leaning heavily against the brass casing of an unlit deck lantern. A fresh linen bandage was wrapped tight around his ribs, but his face was flushed with feverish anger and raw anxiety. The second corvette’s commanding officer stood beside him, clutching a notched arming sword.

"Heroes!" Daniel barked, taking a limping step forward. His eyes darted past them toward the black rubber boat already idling fifty yards off, then toward the colossal gray steel wall of the carrier dominating the western horizon. "You were gone for nearly an hour! What did these iron demons say? Did they demand gold? Hostages? Are they letting us pass?"

Miyuki looked away, her lips trembling slightly. She gripped the splintered wood of her staff, unable to find the words to soften the blow.

Ayanokoji met Daniel’s frantic gaze without blinking. His voice was flat, carrying clearly across the quiet, tense deck where dozens of wounded soldiers were listening.

"We are not passing," Ayanokoji said plainly. "And they aren’t asking for gold. They are taking both vessels, all surviving personnel, and the two of us into custody."

"Custody?!" Daniel’s voice cracked, rising in pure disbelief. "Surrender? Imperial officers of the Solarian Empire, surrendering our commission to a godless tribe of floating blacksmiths?!"

"If you refuse, they will sink both ships where we sit," Ayanokoji replied, entirely unbothered by the captain’s outrage. "The admiral commanding that fleet gave us five minutes to instruct the crew. All weapons must be surrendered into the hold. No combat runes. No barrier spells. If a single archer notches an arrow or a wind mage gathers mana, their gun batteries will erase these decks within seconds."

"Insolence!" Daniel roared, his hand slamming down onto the pommel of his broadsword. "I would rather feed this crew to the sharks than bow our heads like whipped dogs! We are soldiers of the Holy Solarian Empire! We carry the direct mandate of Lady Viona to locate the vanguard fleet and secure the Cragspine shores!"

"You don’t need to look for the vanguard anymore, Captain," Ayanokoji said coldly.

Daniel froze. The second corvette’s commander took a sharp breath, staring at Ayanokoji with wide, bloodshot eyes.

"What did you say?" Daniel whispered, his knuckles turning dead white against his sword hilt. "What do you know of Grand Inquisitor Lord Valerius?"

"The expeditionary fleet is gone," Ayanokoji stated, delivering the verdict with clinical detachment. "Every single galleon. All soldiers. The vanguard was wiped out seven months ago."

A collective gasp swept through the surviving sailors. Several men dropped their repair tools, while others slumped against the bulkheads, clutching holy amulets to their chests.

"You lie!" Daniel snarled, stepping into Ayanokoji’s face, spit flying from his lips. "Valerius commanded the strongest expeditionary fleet that could conquer the entire untamed and uncivilized continent! No savage tribe on the western continent could ever hope to break an imperial line! If they were lost, it was treacherous Wallachian ironclads—"

"It wasn’t Wallachia," Miyuki interrupted, her voice shaking with emotion as she stepped between them. "Captain Daniel, please listen to him! It was them! The United States military destroyed the entire vanguard fleet!"

Daniel recoiled as if struck across the face by an invisible blade. His mouth fell open, his eyes bulging in utter shock.

"The United States...?" Daniel stammered, his mind struggling to process the impossible claim. "Those... those gray hulls did this?"

"Yes."

"That is an act of war!" Daniel suddenly roared, his face turning crimson with explosive fury. He ripped his broadsword halfway out of its iron scabbard, the steel screeching in the quiet morning air. "They attacked the sovereign forces of Her Divinity! They slaughtered imperial subjects! That is a formal declaration of total war against the Empire! We must return to the capital! We must inform the Goddess Viona! The entire imperial grand armada must be mobilized to burn these heathens from the seas!"

"With what sails, Captain?" Ayanokoji asked, pointing toward the fractured, listing bow. "Look at your ship. Your hull is caving in, two compartments are flooded, and your wind mages are coughing up blood from mana exhaustion. You wouldn’t make it twenty leagues east before this wood cracks in half and drags you to the ocean floor."

"Then we scuttle the lead ship and sail on the sister craft!" Daniel yelled back, desperate and unhinged. "We cannot allow ourselves to be captured! We cannot let our sacred duty end in chains!"

"And what happens when their aircraft intercept your sister ship ten miles out?" Ayanokoji challenged, taking a step forward until his dull brown eyes bore directly into the trembling officer’s. "You saw that jet last night. It crossed this entire sector in minutes. If you attempt to flee back toward the empire, they will treat you as an escaping hostile asset carrying sensitive intelligence. They won’t bother boarding you next time. They will drop a single missile from beyond the clouds, and you will die without ever delivering a single word to your emperor."

Daniel’s chest heaved violently. His breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps as the cold, inescapable reality tightened around his throat.

"Captain," Miyuki pleaded gently, placing a hand on his armored sleeve. "They told us the officials are still alive. Corvin, and Valerius are being held in their detention facilities. They are receiving medical treatment. If you surrender, your wounded men will be treated by their doctors. No one else has to die today."

Daniel looked down at his trembling hand on his sword. He looked around at the bruised, blood-stained faces of his surviving crew—young boys from the imperial provinces, veteran sailors missing limbs, clerics with hollow, empty eyes.

Every single man was waiting for his command. And every single man knew that drawing steel meant instantaneous obliteration.

"Her Divinity... forgive me," Daniel choked out, his shoulders slumping in complete, crushing defeat. With a heavy clatter, he shoved his broadsword back into its scabbard and let go of the hilt.

He turned his back on the bow, looking at his first mate.

"Order the men to disarm," Daniel ordered in a dead, hollow voice. "Stack the spears and blades in the forward hold. Tell the mages to purge their channels. We... we comply."

The second commander nodded slowly, walking away to relay the orders. A heavy, somber quiet settled over the decks as soldiers began unbuckling weapon belts and setting their shields aside.

Miyuki let out a long, shaky breath, her knees trembling from the immense relief. She turned to Ayanokoji in a whisper.

"What do we do now? Going to their territory as prisoners... what’s going to happen to us?"

Ayanokoji glanced back toward the western horizon, watching as a third inflatable boat loaded with heavily armed Marines detached from the side of the Gerald R. Ford.

"Nothing bad," Ayanokoji said calmly, his hands slipping back into the pockets of his tunic. "Surrendering isn’t just about survival. In fact, this is the best possible outcome for our mission."

Miyuki blinked, confused. "The best outcome?"

"Our primary objective from the High Council was reconnaissance," Ayanokoji explained. "We were sent to find out what destroyed the vanguard and assess the threat level of the western continent. Wandering through uncharted shores on broken wooden ships would have yielded minimal data. Now, the enemy is providing us with direct transportation, medical logistics, and a tour of their sovereign territory."

A faint, cold glint crossed his eyes as the black speedboats approached the hull.

"We are about to see the United States military from the inside," Ayanokoji murmured. "There is no better intel gathering than that."